Public Works Committee — 2018-09-17
Attendance
Manisha Bewtra ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Scott M. Forbes ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Kate Lipper-Garabedian ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr. ; Michael P. Zwirko
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:30 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Robert A. Boisselle Chair Present Monica C. Medeiros Vice Chair Present Manisha Bewtra Alderman at Large Present Peter D. Mortimer Nonvoting Member Present Shawn M. MacMaster Ward 5 Alderman Present Michael P. Zwirko President/ Ex-officio Membe Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Member Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Nonvoting Member Late 7:56 AM Scott M. Forbes Nonvoting Member Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Nonvoting Member Present Kate Lipper-Garabedian Nonvoting Member Present
ORDER-2019-9 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 177-12: Snow and ice removal as set forth herein. Hold City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 9/20/2018 10:14 AM
Transcript
▶ 20:34 Robert A. Boisselle: Alderman Bewtra, Alderman McMasters, and President Zwirko. Non-voting members who are present this evening is Peter Mortimer, Alderman Mortimer, Alderman Forbes, Alderman Lemmerman, and Alderman Lipper-Garabedian. Motion to open the floor for public comment, Mr. Chairman. There's a motion to open for public comment. Is it second? Second. Second by Alderman . would rather mayor would try that motion i'm a non-voting member that is correct motion to motion to open second for public comment is alderman Tramontozzi and second by alderman Medeiros anyone wishing to talk on the subject this evening on order 2019-9 please come forward and identify yourself and sign the sheets in front of you good evening friends joe pelrine 70 harvard
▶ 21:34 street this is actually not on your agenda but it is a public works question and it's pretty straightforward i've noticed recently in the free press and the other melrose newspaper that the public works is advertising for sewer and or water jobs and asking people to bid but they're not putting the estimated value of the project on that invitation to bid if you look at dot biddings in like the boston globe or boston water and sewer they always put an estimated project value and this is important as a rate payer that we at least get to look and see you know how much was spending so that's all i have thanks for your time okay thank you thank you anyone else uh motion to close the floor for public comment again so used to one of the members
▶ 22:41 Robert A. Boisselle: of the committee open the i mean uh motion to close there's a motion to close public comment Second. Second by Alderman Bewtra. All right. We have one order this evening, 2019-8, acceptance 2019-9, amendment of Melrose Revised Ordinance Chapter 177-12, snow and ice removal has set forth in. This was sponsored by the President Zwirko and Alderman Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chair. so before i begin i just wanted to state that i received a communication from alderman wright who is in somerville this evening he has a meeting he hopes to be here at some point but he is running late so hopefully he can add into this just to give a little bit of a history lesson this is probably the third time in the last 10 or 12 years that an ordinance of this nature has come up
▶ 23:43 Michael P. Zwirko: the previous two times it has not been successful most recently by a narrow margin the timing on this is important it is mid-september and the hope is is that if we are to make modifications to chapter 177-12 that we can do so prior to january 1st of 2019 when as this ordinance is currently drafted would be the effective date so i'd like to spend some time this evening having a good discussion about this trying to work out a couple of potential areas of pitfall orders that need correcting it is not a perfect ordinance as drafted I'm looking to my colleagues to help make this one that's workable but we do have about three and a half months to do so our last meeting of the calendar year is December 17th of this 2018 so hopefully we can work on this and get
▶ 24:33 Michael P. Zwirko: something through my hope also is even though we have addressed this a couple of times certainly not when I was a member of this board but that we can all approach this with a fresh look the most recent attempt that this was during the calendar year of 2015 and as folks may remember 2015 was a horrendous year for snow the MBTA broke down it was called snowpocalypse it was just an awful awful year so getting rid of snow in any neighborhood was quite a challenge folks that commute will remember that the MBTA sent trucks overnight to widen the road that's known as Banks Place so we had a lot of snow I'm hopeful that the past three years we haven't had snow of those amounts although it does seem that when
▶ 25:20 Michael P. Zwirko: it snows now it doesn't snow in 2 to 4 inches it snows in 10 to 12 so take a fresh look and you know let's try to make this as much of a prescriptive ordinance as it is a punitive one right now as it stands if I don't want to shovel my sidewalk I do not have to and we advertise ourselves as a walking community as a pedestrian community as a commuter in a commuter community and yet in the winter oftentimes I'm sure folks have seen it there'll be mothers and fathers with strollers in the middle of the street because sidewalks aren't completely cleared or clear of snow and it creates a not only a public safety issue but we also do not have busing for our schools so our students as well are walking in the morning and in the afternoon on thoroughfares when they
▶ 26:08 Michael P. Zwirko: should be on the sidewalk and it's most of the time it's because these sidewalks aren't cleared I will add that for the most part Melrose does a pretty good job we have neighborhoods that clear frequently we have areas of no concern we have areas that are around schools that we don't have concern with DPW does a great job in alleviating some of those burdens on and around near the schools as well as some of the main thoroughfares as well as the areas that are near our commuter rail stops and heading south towards the orange line And there's also an interesting phenomenon when it comes to shoveling and clearing snow. As I'm sure some folks will note, if they're the first one in their neighborhood, they're
▶ 26:43 Michael P. Zwirko: quickly followed by others to come out of their homes during and after a snowstorm to assist in the neighborhood in cleaning up. There's a kind of a peer pressure, as you will, with clearing snow. So I'm sure that if a sociologist were to take a look and find out if one person goes out, if you build it, they will come. So there are just a couple of things to think about when we talk about this. you know it is a public safety concern we do have folks in the community that are looking for community service hours we have folks that for a nominal fee would be willing to assist generally speaking people do clear their driveway their sidewalk is right next and abutting their driveway so i don't think it's a tall order to ask we're also seeking things in
▶ 27:22 Michael P. Zwirko: this ordinance to allow for the alleviation of folks who may be physically unfirm there is a warning that comes out we're hoping that the earlier the this ordinance gets passed there could be a public outreach campaign much like we've done with recycling in the past to educate folks target some of our problem neighborhoods our problem areas in the hopes that this is something that's workable this is not seen as some sort of an ordinance that's seeking to you know levy funds in a punitive manner this is really just to help make our neighborhoods safer and allow for folks that either bike ride walk or push the strollers down the streets to have a sidewalk off of the roadway to use i think that's most important
▶ 28:05 Michael P. Zwirko: because there are some issues that we do need to work out and we do have department heads here who will hear from in a moment is that we take our time on this ordinance we certainly don't need to rush it through we have received some messages of feedback from the residents and i think we should take those into account as well with that that's the introduction and i look forward to a discussion this evening thank you mr chair for the time Any other Alderman wish to speak on this particular order? Alderman Buchoff? I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules so we can invite, sorry I'm having a moment, Public Works Director John Chenna and City Solicitor Robin Campana. Second. Second motion to suspend the rules.
▶ 28:51 All right, we have a motion to suspend the rules to bring the public officials up. We'll take the fire, the police chief and the city solicitor and the, have them all together. That works. Would any of you gentlemen wish to discuss on the topic this evening? Mr. Chairman, we're here at the invitation of President Zwirko and we've worked on this ordinance in the past in different forms. And this evening we're here to answer any questions members may have specific to this draft. Thank you I appreciate it I know I'm a non-voting member so thank you over the last couple of years I know that we talked about collecting data about certain properties that have been shoveled have we ever identified whether these are people that don't have the capacity to shovel their walkways
▶ 30:01 Scott M. Forbes: or they're just they have the capacity but it just chosen not to do so I know in the beginning when When it was a pilot program, we were going to start looking at certain properties and just seeing if they were being either repeat offenders or maybe they just don't have the capacity to shovel their walk. Has there been any data collection in that regard? Yeah. So since this was first discussed in 15, which was after that horrific winter of 14, 15, we started collecting data in the following winter, 16, 17. It was a package we put together after that winter where we looked at the number of houses and how many houses had sidewalks and of those people with sidewalks who shoveled. We followed that up briefly, 17 and then 17, 18 we collected more data.
▶ 30:51 I have two worksheets with me and I apologize I didn't send this ahead of time. been a little distracted the last few days in public works but i will package this together for for you um i i spoke with alderman Zwirko last week and i think it's his intent to uh place this on hold this evening to give the alderman some time to deliberate to think this through so while you deliberate i will send you the information but i do have hard copies which I'll pass around the one that will circulate from all of them with the Garabedian that way is the 16 results and then I have 17 18 which will thank you I think so what they'll have if I could just highlight something on those again these are these these were done by our staff it's just a visual observation
▶ 32:03 as we drive neighborhoods looking for corners that could be widened or snow that could be removed we've been looking at sidewalks so originally we looked at three storms we looked at a storm on january 24th 16 february 8 16 and april 4th 16. so if you look at that that's the three storm analysis that i've that i've passed out halfway through um halfway down if you look at percent of parcels that front sidewalks who did not shovel the first storm there were 4.1 of what we saw then it went down on 1.3 by the last storm it was only was less than one percent of what we saw that was not shoveled we repeated the exercise this past winter if you look at the sheet that says 2018 on the top so on january 4th we had that was right after a storm we went out on
▶ 33:10 the 4th and then again on the 11th that's what we refer to as storm 1. then we went out on march 13th of this past winter and then again on the 15th that's what we referred to as storm 2. and if you follow again percent of parcels the front sidewalks that don't shovel you'll see that about two two and a half percent of melrose was not shoveling so alderman's work goes original opening remarks this is uh very much like recycling and other things where there's a little care pressure neighborhoods and these two maps show the results and they're clustered and i'll pass these around again i'll send these around digitally and put them on iqm2 but there's a lot so we have as a department at the request of the board and the mayor's office and
▶ 34:21 then alderman Infurna now mayor Infurna is something that we've been observing and it's something that we've been collecting data on and um in lieu of another conversation which is starting tonight so those are the statistics all of them for upset okay so out of the 8 500 homes 2.1 represents about 175 to 180 parcels that we're talking about that hasn't hasn't really shovel in those citywide in those storms yeah yeah okay and then does this include sidewalks that are grass sidewalks and not necessary no we pulled them so if you look at the top there's um i can walk you down the page number of parcels is the number of parcels in that particular ward number of properties uh number of parcels that front sidewalks is something that we did
▶ 35:10 Shawn M. MacMaster: when we could see the sidewalk so for instance in ward 7 there are 1540 apostles 731 of those have sidewalks okay um and then of those 731 we we subtract out what we do as part of our sidewalk routes and that leaves the amount of parcels left to look at in each ward great well i appreciate you gathering the data for us i know it's uh it always helps to have the numbers in front of us so appreciate it thank you mr chairman thank you mr chairman thank you all for being here mr shen i just had a question um with respect to staffing levels and reviewing the minute meetings from 2015 there were various meetings between march and december and at that time you had indicated that in order to enforce
▶ 36:10 this order and you mentioned this multiple times there would need to be supplemental staff have staffing changes occurred at all between 2015 and today no we've not added any any staff to enforce i mean i really don't see us as an enforcement agency um we observe and sometimes i we observe ourselves and try to correct ourselves and make ourselves more efficient in what we do that's how we collected this data we're out doing other things and hey look at the sidewalk let's see who's shoveling our trouble um i'm not sure what the will of this board is going to be but to go out and actually start ticketing and collecting fines and that's something that we really are not staffed to do to continue to do this and identify pocket areas and problem areas it's absolutely
▶ 37:01 Manisha Bewtra: something we'll continue to do because that helps us do our job that's my only question at this time thank you mr chairman but the records show that alvin wright has arrived all of them do that thank you um and also thank you chief lyle sorry i didn't see you walk in the room earlier um and thank you all three for being here um can you clarify more on which uh how the city determines which sidewalk routes on the city plows um so they've been long-standing routes um they've stood the time they've been around since i started so that's 20 almost 20 plus years now what they did was they originally were identified by the school department and the then superintendent of public works and every year we revisit it but they're intended to
▶ 37:53 Manisha Bewtra: identify pocket ways for pocket neighborhoods to get children in pocket neighborhoods to get onto a main drag and walk to school all the schools elementary high school now as demographics change as school districts get refined a little bit not officially but at least where kids are going and what school they're going to is comes to light year to year we sit with the superintendent and the principal on a yearly basis and base if we if there is a need to tweak we tweak if not we just stick with the roots the way they are thank you um and additionally um So, I'm noting in this draft that there's sort of the differentiation between residential properties and commercial properties, and then now there's a fee structure sort of imposed
▶ 38:43 on both. In the past, have you had to levy the fee, I don't know if that comes out of your office, on the commercial properties? I don't think we've ever levied a fee, but we've issued several letters which threaten the fee and that usually gets action and we do that together with the mayor's office uh mike lindstrom and i typically work and i'd say on a yearly basis there were probably a handful of commercial properties at the beginning of the winter that we we'd get down to one or two that we would send a letter to and that eventually did do the right thing i think there might have been only one where at the end i went and did it and we backcharged them but that's how we that's how we handle commercial properties in the past thank you um i think if i have other questions
▶ 39:43 Manisha Bewtra: at this time i mean i think i can just share a couple of thoughts i have um i'm inclined to hold this in committee which is i think the thought that we were starting off with um just to kind of work through the language a little bit more and also although i think there is the opportunity for public engagement after an ordinance is modified i think having a little bit more public engagement and awareness that this is something coming before us would be very useful i'm also concerned about the fee structure it doesn't sound like a lot but at the same time depending on what kind of winter we might have or how aware people might may be uh i'm just concerned about you know that we do that really thoughtfully and um you know like a an opportunity to look more at
▶ 40:35 Manisha Bewtra: what mastod and other municipalities have done because a lot of i was actually surprised to learn that you know like over kind of the course of the last couple winters that we didn't have this mechanism already in place so i applaud this um this effort and i do think we need to do something um but i also would like to see kind of what has worked in other places um and better understand that sort of where which sidewalks are getting plowed i happen to live on grove street so i'm one of the the lucky ones that gets plowed by the city and i actually always assumed it was related to the fact that the bus comes down which is sort of the similar it's a main drag um similar thought process but sort of looking at that and how that kind of fits in
▶ 41:20 John N. Tramontozzi: into this picture as well um but for the moment those are all my comments thank you mr chairman so i'm looking at um there's a lot to study here i know but i just want while we have you guys present um section paragraph e or section e paragraph one begins the enforcement provision and we've already heard from public works director mr shenna that he doesn't see the department of the dpw as an enforcement agency and he's not he doesn't have the staff for it i noticed that the section also allows the morrow's police department to be authorized to assist in the enforcement chief i do you have the manpower for enforcement of this uh ordinance uh i mean do you see yourself going out there and uh i don't see it's the means of it so if it's a snowstorm
▶ 42:14 John N. Tramontozzi: they're already dealing with accidents and multiples or complaints from dbw as far as vehicles in the roadway it's very difficult for them to do that but i will say when dbw contacts the police department someone's blowing snow or throwing snow on a street we'll go up there and tell them to knock it off but as far as the check sidewalks that would be a lot of work for us that we don't have the manpower i also say it does also allow the director of inspectional services we don't have mr johnson here today but he has also enforcement authorities i would ask that question be directed to him as well i don't think he has a support staff i would suspect to be out there enforcing the snow removal ordinance but i think if we keep this in committee maybe the chairman
▶ 43:07 John N. Tramontozzi: of the committee can address that question to mr johnson i mean i think the the city does a good job in keeping the snow clear the sidewalks around the schools and making the ability to get to schools that's the city's responsibilities the city sidewalks i think mr shenna the department does a fine job in doing that um i haven't received many complaints about inability to to get to schools at least in my ward but i'll open it up to others my my other concern that i have is um i've heard from our senior citizen population i mean some of them just can't get out there and um in shovel um i mean i think we have to i think we're we gotta we gotta find community of people and we do have volunteers student volunteers that will go out and help with
▶ 44:11 John N. Tramontozzi: clearing i don't think we should underestimate the ability of our citizens to to shovel and keep the sidewalks clear voluntarily and of their own free will. I mean, we do have provisions now in our ordinance for the business community, and I think that will stay in place. I don't have a problem with that. I think it's a very, I mean, to revise our ordinance to make it punitive for essentially a very small percentage of the population that doesn't shovel, So I'm not sure it's kind of not really forward thinking, but just a couple thoughts that I had. I know I would like to see this stay in committee, review it further, hear from the public more, and we'll see what happens. Thank you. Alvin Mortimer.
▶ 45:06 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Alderman, I am opposed to this ordinance as I was the last two times it came up. And was defeated after thorough analysis and debate. And I have four reasons that are against it. And I would respectfully ask my fellow aldermen to consider that if you cannot refute all four reasons, that we should not make a change in our ordinances regarding snow. Some of the issues have been touched on indirectly so far, but here are the four arguments that I have. The first thing is, it's not fair. Some people get their sidewalk plowed because they're on the school route, some others don't. It's also not fair, because those sidewalks belong to the city, not to the homeowner.
▶ 46:11 Peter D. Mortimer: We are essentially drafting our citizens into forced labor to shovel our sidewalks, and that's not fair. They don't own those sidewalks, they can't put their alma mater logo, they can't put their frat house logo, They can't put their favorite sports team or some social issue or candidate support that they want to paint it on the sidewalk. They can't put it over the smooth brick or flagstone. It's not their sidewalk. It's our sidewalk. And some of them we shovel for the safety of the children, and some of them we don't. Some places do tell homeowners what they can't do. You can't paint your house a certain color, you can't change out certain windows, but to tell people that you must work and shovel, you must pick up a shovel and shovel your
▶ 47:11 Peter D. Mortimer: sidewalk, that's not fair. They're being drafted. It's conscription. And then the answer is, well, they can hire somebody else to do it. Well, that gives me the idea that in the Civil War, people who were drafted could buy their way out for $300. So you either have to shovel or pay. And some people, as was mentioned, can't pay. Some people can't pay and they can't shovel. And then you have the health exemptions. So that becomes an administrative kerfuffle. Who gets the health exemption? And that takes me back. I was a little young, but the kids older in my neighborhood were being drafted to Vietnam, and they were faking some. Some were genuine, but some were faking Meaning that, oh, they couldn't serve because of health reasons.
▶ 48:00 Peter D. Mortimer: So now you're going to have people who don't want a shovel coming down and saying, oh, I have this health problem and that health problem. And we don't have the staff, we're already short staffed here, to sort that out. The next argument, argument number two is, I've lived here for 50 years before I was a teenager. And Melrose was a walking city then, as much as it was. Granted, there were less cars here then, but everybody walked around everywhere. And I have never, ever heard of anyone getting killed or even injured, hit by a car, because the sidewalks were blocked. Just never heard of it. I've heard of people wearing dark clothes at night who've been hit, like that poor, mentally challenged kid on Lined Ave.
▶ 48:45 Peter D. Mortimer: Speed was probably involved with that. Brother Barzo was killed down here near St. Mary's. That was probably substance abuse or drunk driving, and the person took off, and he died a short time later. We've had deaths due to solar glare over on Howard Street, the landscaper, and maybe excessive speed. Minor McClain was killed on Franklin Street because of solar glare in the eyes of the T bus driver, who ran right into him because he couldn't see. We've had speed. We've had drunk driving. We've had texting accidents. but I have never heard of in my 50 years anyone who's been hit because they couldn't pass by a sidewalk and one in the street. Alleman Tramitosi is right. People are generally more careful driving and walking when there's a snowstorm.
▶ 49:37 Peter D. Mortimer: This is a solution looking for a problem. This is overkill. This is too much. There's not enough of that. Another thing that was touched on is this is revenue negative. give. It's not our purpose here to get a lot of revenue, and we won't. So we're going to be trying to have more staff. Somebody has to do it. If we pass it, we just don't want to pass an ordinance and then let it slide. We're just flapping our gums if we do that. So who's going to staff it? And first the letter has to go out, and then there has to be a fine and it's a small fine so we'll be spending way more than what we're collecting this will be regular rent revenue negative and most of the people that I've talked to about this so far are the people who may be undecided or
▶ 50:31 Peter D. Mortimer: opposed to the override that's going to be coming up and if we tell them we have enough staff to go out and make sure you shovel to your sidewalk and give you were fine if you didn't they're going to be asking well what do you need my override money for if you got staff if you got money to do that what do you need my override money for and we have enough things going on I mean we all know it takes a while to get potholes filled in spite of the very best and excellent efforts of our DPW people want them filled faster they don't want people out looking at their sidewalks I got a wall at the fire station up on the east side that's been two years waiting to get rebuilt and I'm not saying that in any harsh or
▶ 51:20 Peter D. Mortimer: critical way because I know the staff is overworked the police are overworked the city solicitors overworked DPWs overworked they're all overworked we can't put this on them as well and and we're going to scare away a lot of people who might help us in other areas and we don't want to do that it's also an administrative nightmare you're gonna have things like neighbors tattling on each other when there's a dispute this one didn't shovel their walk this one did shovel their walk you know again who's exempt who's on the exempt list that they don't have to do it the police DPW or whoever might enforce this is going to have to look and say oh is that grass under that snow or is that a sidewalk? Are we gonna have a list that they're gonna have to check
▶ 52:13 Peter D. Mortimer: as they drive around? We don't have the staff for that. And then there's the excuse, well I shoveled it but the plow came by and we plow curb to curb in this city. A very nice thing that we do for our citizens here. But then people say, well the plow kicked the snow back onto my sidewalk. Not to mention the mounds of snow that are sometimes necessary at certain corners. There's no way around it. We have tight streets here. This was originally cart paths when Melrose was built. So those people aren't going to be able to shovel off their sidewalks. And again, I've never seen a problem with this anyway. And at that time, as the chief pointed out, us DPW crews are busy as can be at that time. Going around making sure the streets are plowed and the sidewalks near the schools are plowed.
▶ 53:06 Peter D. Mortimer: and making sure everything's right, they don't have the time to look around and see who shoveled their sidewalk and who didn't shovel their sidewalk. It's an administrative nightmare. And the police, they're investigating accidents, car accidents. I haven't heard of one where a car has hit a pedestrian in a snowstorm. You know, maybe there have been some, but not as much as these other cases I've heard, solar glare, drunk driving, texting. Again, it's a solution looking for a problem. And the other administrative problem is the appeals. People will say, well I shoveled it and then it melted and re-froze. And then the city solicitor, if they refuse to pay the fine, has to do it or if they appeal it.
▶ 53:49 Peter D. Mortimer: Now the city solicitor has to run to court and argue the case there. We've already lost our deputy city solicitor due to a lack of funds in this city. So the city solicitor is running amok, busier than he's ever been. He doesn't have, we need to spend our money on other things, potholes, schools, fixing walls. And I know, admittedly, it's true, anything we ever spend money on, somebody will always say, well, you could have used that money for something else, and their favorite item, whatever it is. But in this case, we really do have more important things to do. This is not a major problem. The numbers we saw here of people who didn't shovel for all three storms were half a percent and one percent.
▶ 54:39 Peter D. Mortimer: If that's the problem, I think if people carefully walk around, and who knows, those people may qualify for the exemption. When all is said and done, if we go through all this work and all this rigmarole, they may be the very people who will qualify for the exemption, and we'll still be right back where we started. This is too much, this is too much. It's something we can deal with. I know, it'll be horrible if I say this and then this winter somebody's killed, but these are the facts. We have priorities and we have to sort out our priorities here as the Board of Aldermen. That's all I have, thank you. Thank you. Alderman Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not quite sure how to follow that.
▶ 55:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: One thing I will say, Alderman Mortimer, is the people you referenced who were struck by vehicles were all in the street. In the summer, sorry, I apologize, I shouldn't have spoken. Gentlemen. I apologize, my apologies. Mr. Shenna, I drive to work every day, I pass through four communities. Your staff does a great job plowing the streets. Would you say you would agree with that? you know they're exceptional what they do I mean there's always room for improvement but we strive to produce that outcome every storm and the city has made great strides or certainly considerable efforts to make the city more bicycle friendly and the city through its various programs have tried to make it efforts so to make the city more pedestrian friendly correct and
▶ 56:19 Francis X. Wright Jr.: And we've made efforts to try to make the commuter rail and the routes to Oak Grove more enticing so people use public transportation. Yeah, we've built around them. Okay. And, Chief, you indicated that your department is extremely busy during snowstorms, correct? Yes. Not so busy two days later? Not to that level. Well, we run three sectors, we do three sectors. Great, thank you. Remember, for the traffic, how we have a traffic act. Okay, but I mean, during a snowstorm, you're busy, and nobody would deny that. But two days later, you get a call, more routine call, you're able to respond to it, generally. I mean, circumstances can always be different every day, but generally speaking. This is true, yes.
▶ 57:13 Francis X. Wright Jr.: you know I co-sponsored this order not as a revenue raising device I would agree the city solicitor has better things to do with this time but I don't think he'd say no if we told him that this was something we're doing and there's an appeal and you have to handle it of course he's going to handle it but you know I didn't write again I didn't file this as a revenue raising device and certainly we're not in a position as all of them in Mortimer would agree under the Emerson College test we're not in a position to raise revenue through fines only allowed to recover our costs but I filed it because a number of people at least in my ward like to walk to downtown the people in the Levi Gould the people in the fuller house the people in the Cephalo house the other
▶ 58:14 Francis X. Wright Jr.: elderly members of our community the mothers with young children they like to walk to downtown and they'd like to do that safely but when you've got nicely plowed streets people able to drive and i think we can all agree that some there's people out there who forget that it snowed and drive like it hasn't snowed and beyond that accidents happen whether it's solar glare whether it's drunk driving whether it's any other reason and if you're not in the street you can't get hit but if you come up upon a sidewalk and there's a foot, foot and a half of snow or ice and you have to walk in the street to get by while you're pushing a baby carriage or pushing a shopping cart or God forbid with a walker
▶ 59:04 Francis X. Wright Jr.: or just walking along just trying to get home for work or trying to get to the bus stop you could get hit There are a number of communities in our area that are similar to Melrose that require their residents to shovel their sidewalks. This is not unique. This is not intended to be punitive. Oliver Mortimer, they had a block party in my neighborhood the other night. Had two live bands, and they went beyond. They said they were going to end at 9. They went to 11. Not one resident. chief did you get any calls about music in the uh sanford street area on saturday night i can't recall so i'm going to assume no since i didn't see any blue lights people aren't looking to report their neighbors for not doing anything if i have an elderly resident living near me i'm going to
▶ 59:56 Francis X. Wright Jr.: go out and help them shovel but if i have an absentee landlord and one of the two families in my neighborhood and they're too busy to come in from concord or georgetown to shovel that sidewalk i want the city to take some action i want that person told that the residents of this city should not have to travel in the street in order to get to the bus stop in order to get downtown in order to get to their neighbors to check on them so um i guess my last question would be to the city solicitor uh has there been any recent case law in the last year or two that would in any way relate directly or indirectly to residents having to shovel up I'm not aware of any other than to say that there is a statute
▶ 1:00:43 that's put on the books for sometimes that does give cities and towns the authority to implement this type of an ordinance in residential neighborhoods and that that's never been challenged not not to my knowledge ultimate okay and are you aware of other communities that have similar ordinances to the one proposed i am thank you thank you motion for recess under rule 21c second oh sorry not about all right there's a recess been called by president Zwirko and second by alderman Peter we will be back after the board of uh alderman meeting all those in favor aye good evening it is Monday September 17 2018 the current time is 825 p.m. this is a full board meeting of the Melrose Board of Aldermen this meeting
▶ 1:26:21 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: So I appreciate the question about enforcement of the ordinance with respect to businesses and understand to date we don't really fine these businesses, but we give warnings and maybe even send letters. Is that right? Correct. we work very closely with the Chamber of Commerce in that regard Lauren's great she does a lot of initial outreach on our behalf and then you know even a day or two before the storm she'll do the same thing and they've been they're a great partner in terms of getting downtown to look the way it does that's great there's also a requirement in the ordinance for our I believe there may be some requirement for some of the work that your department takes on around for example our public buildings or the
▶ 1:27:14 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: schools and is can you speak to sort of the timeline in which that gets accomplished and then a follow-up question is for both of these if a resident is walking and is having trouble with the commercial area or on a route to near a public building or a school in what way can they who should they be alerting what kind of remedy can they seek good questions we obviously our first priority of the roads and then when we transition and we get a good handle on that we go to the sidewalk route and we don't open school until our sidewalk routes are complete and that also includes the area the sidewalks in and around schools and school guys and conjunction when that while one group is working on that aspect we have a second group that looks at crosswalks within
▶ 1:28:09 the sidewalk rules so this way we have a good visibility especially where crossing guards are we have a list of about 18 20 locations that we that we clear as well in regards to who to call you can call Public Works some people call the mayor's office they end up with Public Works it's always good for us to get feedback sometimes that leads to changes as well there was a there was a run a sidewalk on lower Main Street that we got a lot of calls about and and that was they were from commuters going to oak grove so we adjusted the sidewalk route in the south section to now address that and it was you know basically based on feedback that we got year after year after yeah we were already on main street so we just went another block now and it addressed
▶ 1:29:05 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: an issue so we we are the entity to call in that regard if it's commercial property um for instance condos and apartment buildings we're not afraid to figure out who owns them who maintains them which landscape is doing the stone removal and we try to work with them in that regard so you know those are the type of things that we do because we're out in the boat after after that um snowfall okay is there a public document that is accessible that would show us the map of the safe routes that you've identified so that if i'm trying to walk my student to the the Winthrop I can pull up the map and say okay these are the sidewalks that I know the city's considering to be sort of heavily trafficked or if I'm trying
▶ 1:29:51 to get to Oak Grove this is the way I should probably go so our sidewalk maps are posted and it's a it's a simplified GIS map with arrows that shows what we do what side of the street we plow we send it to all I know that superintendent tamar is um we have a meeting with her staff before each winter and the principals do a great job getting that out as well when the mayor mayor's office blogs before storm we try to link those maps into her blogs as well so we try to get the maps out as as much as possible and if kids have to walk to school i mean it's my number one concern all the time as soon as we get a handle on those roads is okay we have to get these sidewalks done and so that these kids don't have
▶ 1:30:41 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: to step out onto the street and that can stay in the sidewalk but again that doesn't cover the entire city but that covers the those areas that we do do okay that's good to know i actually didn't know that and i'll look for an email from a principal in the coming weeks or months um and we've talked a little bit both um our my colleagues as well as some of the public comment about other municipalities and i know that you and i met earlier this year with the mayor's previous chief of staff to talk a little bit about that i had pulled up a lot of examples of other municipalities that do have these types of ordinances so they would include in which a homeowner is responsible for do for for um for shoveling and um i've tried to look sort of at when they would be responsive like at
▶ 1:31:28 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: what point in time that responsibility arises and if there are fines what they would cost so just for my colleagues a few of the exam I looked at about 36 different municipalities that seems somewhat like us and 25 of them do make homeowners responsible for shoveling these include Arlington Belmont Brookline Cambridge Chelsea Everett Gloucester Lynn Lyttonfield Malden Medford Newton Newburyport, Salem, Somerville, Wakefield, Woburn. So you know whether or not there may be details around enforcement and that sort of thing but it's just helpful to look at. I'm wondering if you have talked to any of your counterparts in other communities to to discuss what this looks like on the ground for them.
▶ 1:32:19 I haven't. In general, we speak about several issues with local DPWs, especially people that have the same demographics as Melrose. Melrose is a little unique. We're not Wakefield, but we're not Everett. We're somewhat in between. We have areas that can identify with North, areas that can definitely identify with the Everett Mall and Medford, some of those of the world, too. um most public works agencies are not the enforcement group and they um in their in their estimation everybody that i've spoken to no they don't oppose it but they don't require it because it's not something that they do they don't do residential sidewalks but again any snow you get off the public way is could be could be deemed a positive
▶ 1:33:16 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: of public works, no operation. So they kind of get to stay, they play that neutral position. I can tell you my hometown's on that list and I didn't even know we had one, so. Okay. I mean, there's various levels. There's the ordinance and then there's the enforcement of the ordinance, but. That's right. You surprised me when you first told me that and I was like, that's not doing my sidewalk. Well, this is based on a, I saw an article in Boston Globe. possible that they have outdated or incorrect information but overall I think it's probably pretty accurate and I think you're right we talked about that but just because something is in writing doesn't necessarily mean that in practice it's happening and that's certainly a concern that I would have I
▶ 1:34:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: and I recognize the capacity issues you've talked about I also noticed that on the map that you passed out it seemed like a good number of those parcels disproportionately so and not really surprisingly so are corner lots and we heard from a gentleman this after this evening who lives on a corner lot and discuss how that can be difficult I live on a corner lot and we're out snow blowing both sides of the walkway but certainly at the even the plows have to put the snow somewhere so it often does end up right at that corner and it is impossible for us to get through that bank so that's something we should be thinking about in terms of whether there are other ways to store the snow or if there are ways that our ordinance could if we were to pass something could
▶ 1:34:46 address that I don't know if you have any thoughts on corner lots at this point well I feel for people in corner lots but I if you're clearing an intersection there's not many places to put the snow and we do have to push it back because otherwise you can't get out if you're on a side street you can't get onto the main street to take the left or the right you just can't see i know cars are bigger than they used to be in the past but snow does pile up quickly and you know i wish most snow gets plowed to the side until you get to an intersection and at an intersection you have no you know you plot one direction you plow out the other direction that crisscross has to get pushed back into the corners so while i feel for them if we do pass an ordinance like this i think there should be
▶ 1:35:35 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: a little bit of leeway you know whether it's a good faith estimate a good faith effort on their part just to again you don't you don't want the pedestrian to end up in the street that's the goal you don't have to give them four feet but if you can give them two three and a half i think that's that's a good good effort in my opinion okay um i guess the other comments i have are um just because i i think it sounds like the committee members the will of the committee i'm not a member of the committee maybe to place this on file to continue to solicit public feedback which certainly i think makes sense um and also to give us more time to think it through a couple things that i would just note for my colleagues with respect to the drafting of it currently a lot
▶ 1:36:21 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: of the we currently suggest that the responsibility would arise within 12 hours between sunrise and sunset after such snow and ice have come upon the sidewalk pretty much any other ordinance that I've studied starts the clock ticking after the snow and precipitation end so it may be more in keeping with others for example Cambridge is 12 hours after the precipitation stops if it's during the day and then by 1 p.m. if it stops overnight so it's just a thought I don't think we want necessarily people out there in the middle of a snowstorm if it started 12 hours before but it's still snowing the other thing I would ask the drafters and others to think about is under section e paragraph 1 where we do talk about enforcement we've mentioned that DPW and the police
▶ 1:37:15 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: department are mentioned as is the director of inspectional services and we reference that position and say in certain circumstances that position will have authority to enforce the provisions and I'm wondering what that means to for certain circumstances so that might be worth just some attention and the only other one is we talked about in that same paragraph there can be an exemption which I think is a great suggestion for those who have health or financial limitations but we say that's a temporarily temporary exemption and I'm wondering how that would work perhaps we leave that open for the city departments to interpret and determine but it's just a flag that it's not entirely clear my last comment for the good of the order is that I did pull up the case law that
▶ 1:38:11 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: is referenced in I believe a memorandum that was considered in 2015 by this board related to or maybe it's actually I think it might be in the notice that you all sent to the community the business community a case from 2010 that the SJC ruled unrelated to slip and fall and liability there for snow and ice and Alderman Wright I know that you had asked if there had been additional case law so there have been two cases in the Mass Appellate Court that have cited that case one in 2016 and one in 2017 the one in 2016 essentially suggested that absent in ordinance like this there may not be a responsibility of a homeowner to shovel although there is a responsibility to refrain from creating an unsafe condition on a public way adjacent to his property and then in
▶ 1:39:07 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 2017 in an unpublished opinion from the appellate court the court found that there is no duty to keep the abutting public sidewalk clear from snow ice or water caused by natural accumulation however there may be an obligation owed to a municipality so that there is it is appropriate in other words for municipalities to create snow ordinances that create create on land owners is limited duty to remove snow and ice so that is within our ability to do and I think that's all I have tonight thank you thank you um I just wanted to make a couple more points for the record which just for the sake of it I guess um one I understand that the motive for this is is ensuring walkability and accessibility around our city and I just wanted to sort of point to my own
▶ 1:40:00 Manisha Bewtra: experience as somebody who takes the bus and waits for the bus when there's snow and no safe place to stand while I wait for the bus and who also walks with a six-year-old to school I this is a real challenge so I think that people's the concerns that Alderman Wright and Alderman Sorko laid forth in this order make a lot of sense to me again I'm not yet at the point where I'm ready to sort of say yay or nay but I do think you know I think we heard from a number of people over this last winter about issues with accessing our transit stops issues with accessing Oak Grove and that's something of utmost importance to me I don't know if we can get to a place where we can allow for ensuring wheelchair accessibility across the city I think you know there's even greater in
▶ 1:41:03 Manisha Bewtra: terms of width we talked about two people walking side by side in this current draft and they don't know that that would be wide enough to accommodate wheelchair or even strollers so those are some of the things on my mind I also agree though that sort of these issues around corners or corner Lots the administrative burden of enforcement and how and the small percentage of folks that aren't in compliance the fact that there's only one between sort of one and three percent if you include any single stroke snowstorm all the way to every snowstorm in a season that aren't complying like if there are other ways we can handle this I do know some other municipalities have maybe not through the municipal government but enforced or created programs such as a snow angels
▶ 1:41:55 Manisha Bewtra: program I know that we circulate a list of high school students willing to plow our sidewalks and driveways but I think that's something that we might want to consider is is there a carrot we can offer in tandem with sort of the the enforcement side of it and additionally the organization I used to work for a metropolitan area planning council has a few resources along with MassDOT MassDOT recently or is in the midst of updating a pedestrian transportation plan which you know lists snow removal as a best practice and an MAPC has issued or or issued about five or six years ago a snow removable snow removal policy toolkit which i think many of the ordinances and bylaws that were mentioned by alderman Letter garabedian are
▶ 1:42:56 Manisha Bewtra: essentially listed in there and there are communities with a lot of density all the way to communities less dense than ours have managed to to implement a bylaw or ordinance such as this so again i'm not at a point where i'm sort of definitely in favor or definitely opposed i do think that there is value in having the conversation i think thinking about how this it goes with our sort of complete streets policy and maybe looking at that sidewalk routes map and just sort of checking it in tandem with our complete streets route i don't know if this is something you've already done i imagine there would be a lot of wouldn't be a lot of changes but there are tools such as the local access score which again my colleagues my previous former
▶ 1:43:43 Robert A. Boisselle: colleagues at mapc created and others which can kind of help determine what are those heavily traveled routes in addition to your knowledge as dpw but i look forward to exploring this further question to the city solicitor this particular order does it also encompasses institutions like churches gasoline stations and other businesses that sidewalks that they have in front of them or they're on the corner and so forth that they should do all four as it's worded um as it's drafted i would take the position that it does well i'm just wondering because in section b it talks about this res owner or occupant of a resident residency own in the budding a sidewalk and the first one indicates no owner section a it only indicates
▶ 1:44:39 Robert A. Boisselle: no owner or tenant or occupant of a land or a building shall put snow on the sidewalk curb or in the roadway when these institutions come in with their plows they just go across the street and boom they dump it onto the sidewalk and that i can see that because the poor homeowners on that side is now getting all the snow from the institution across the street so the churches gasoline stations are required to keep the snow to plow the sidewalks on their street so so to according to the language of the current ordinance to the extent the the building is in a section of the city containing commercial office and manufacturing facilities that's the commercial component of this ordinance those facilities would be required to clear snow from
▶ 1:45:31 the sidewalk abutting their property okay then the the sort of the residential component which is being proposed by the co-sponsors would apply to the owner or occupant of any residentially zoned land abutting so i i think the point is to the extent the church is in a zone containing commercial office and manufacturing facilities an argument can be made that the ordinance would apply okay good to the director of the dpw you have four street or sidewalk plows is that correct correct how long does it take to do the main routes that that you've shown on the map so far uh so one one is our downtown business then we have three residential routes basically we split going up up on grove and so forth split the city in thirds we have a south section central and a
▶ 1:46:23 Robert A. Boisselle: north okay on average six four to eight inch storm um it takes a good two to two two and a half hours to do the route um in its entirety okay those are the main idea is it possible to move those plows through the side streets to give the residents at least a fighting chance in an eight or ten inch snowstorm to instead of trying to do the entire sidewalk with all this heavy snow to do a first pass and let them come out and get that clean area out as much as possible i mean that's something we can evaluate we we can identify certain streets to go into but we have to make sure we can get the machine into it utility pulls off that is correct i mean some of some of the sidewalks have trees in them that take up half of the sidewalk those streets would be uh would not
▶ 1:47:13 Robert A. Boisselle: be done or those sidewalks would not be done because of the obstructions in in that way and so forth if the plow can get into those side streets and to do those sidewalks is it possible to look at that for to relieve some of the uh burden so forth yeah we can always evaluate and see what we can do i mean at the end of the day we're never going to be able to get everywhere and it doesn't matter if you want to do a little more where do you want to do a little more we'll see if we can do it right I mean just to eliminate one of the questions and not being fair to everyone and so forth we try to spread those plows out as much as possible Alderman Darrows thank you first just on some housekeeping notes just I'd like to move to include the two charts
▶ 1:48:00 Monica C. Medeiros: that mr shena handed out today um along with the two maps into the ordinance well i believe you were sending us a package i will send it digitally yes just to add the electronic package will be incorporated into the uh notes and so forth it shouldn't be any problem at all president de zirco oh sorry oh sorry i'm sorry just a couple of comments more and um i'll wrap up but i know one of the things that's come up a lot and I you know I live on one of these corners that's on a main street that is it's it's next to impossible when we get some of these big storms from the snow that comes especially on the main street side where there is no green grassy strip and this the snow just comes and it's really ice that comes on and you're on a corner and easily it's it you know
▶ 1:48:58 Monica C. Medeiros: it gets as high as this desk and higher sometimes and of ice and you know there's just a physical capability that an individual residential homeowner you know it's it's really hard you know and you're not gonna get through that in 12 hours you know it's gonna take days and some melting and going back out and trying to get some more at it you just can't do it and when I see any kind of ordinance like this if I can't do it myself I can't in good conscience ask for another homeowner to do it or they'll be fined I mean it's I think you know this came up obviously previously before us and you know one of my concerns was the the time in which we need to clear the snow I think this has been moved out to 12 hours which is better than what was initially proposed
▶ 1:49:51 Monica C. Medeiros: to us but I still think if we're looking at the problem homes and now we see the information that mr. Shenna brought us it's it's really just a very small percent that the real trouble the real troublemakers if you will you know I think we could look at doing this 72 hours from when the snow stops and you would really get the people who really made no effort to to clean the snow which are really the problem we talked about public safety and this being a public safety measure chief I don't know if you have the numbers or perhaps you could ask to have these for the next time we look at this again the number of incidences of snow related health incidences that that we respond to in the city medical emergencies and every year we hear you know nightmare stories
▶ 1:50:46 Monica C. Medeiros: of people you know we haven't thank God we haven't had anybody hit as a result of a snowstorm in this city but we have had deaths through cardiac arrests of people who have been shoveling snow and you know it's already stressful trying to be a good citizen and get things cleaned up and I just I'm loathe to add any more burden on that what I do see and I think would be useful for us to be looking at as a city is not just only we do pride ourselves in being walkable not only looking at the school routes but also looking at commuter routes and I think from some of the reasons I've heard from Alderman Wright I think tonight and particularly in the past has been that you know he has people who are
▶ 1:51:38 Monica C. Medeiros: trying to get to the T to go to work and in his ward and they can't get down the street and you know this is something that I think we should be taking into account when we're making snowplow routes not just not just school routes but also you know pedestrian routes and especially these big big main streets if we are going to expand and maybe we should be looking at expanding on some of the main thoroughfares where it is especially hard for an individual homeowner to clean up that sidewalk that technically isn't theirs it's ours and it's the city's responsibility so if it's maybe something we should be looking at and I'm sure we'll look at this ordinance more later thank you thank you president circle Thank You mr. chairman I just like to say at this
▶ 1:52:27 Michael P. Zwirko: point thank you for all three of you being here this evening I know it's gone a lot later than we expected but this has been very helpful I'd also like to add that it's nice to have this discussion I don't find ourselves frequently in this chamber actually deliberating that often at this length so this has been this has been good it's been beneficial I think hopefully to the process you know I've heard a lot tonight but I don't think the needle has really moved that much from the last time we discussed this and that's really unfortunate I think that I'm really here I'm some commenting late although I did introduce this i just wanted to respond to a couple of the comments that have been made
▶ 1:53:11 Michael P. Zwirko: first with respect to the division of inspectional services i reached out to mr johnson and i spoke with him he does not have the authority of a private way to enforce this ordinance as written it could be amended in the zoning ordinances for his role but he is specific to private ways so that is going to be one amendment that i would make to strike the division of inspectional services so folks that had questions on that there's your answer we did speak when i was speaking with mr johnson about the need and other municipalities have this role it's a code enforcement officer it's really a catch basin for a whole litany of codes that cities do implement it could be in addition to parking it could be we talked earlier about some
▶ 1:53:58 Michael P. Zwirko: trash issues if we're talking about you know blades of grass or snow on sidewalks there there are positions the city does not have them as we are vastly under resourced and vastly understaffed but those are ways in which enforcement ultimately could take place a code enforcement officer again could work in conjunction with the health department a whole slew of other departments really to kind of do the work of checking up on ordinance to make sure things are being followed in terms of enforcement you know it's almost as if people think that there is going to be police cars that are driving around six hours after the snow to make sure that the sidewalks have been cleared that is not the intent at all and quite frankly that's a waste of resources i mean if the
▶ 1:54:46 Michael P. Zwirko: chief of police were directing his men and women to go up and down the streets and look at sidewalks that's a waste of time you know I mean and I'll ask a question you chief how do you police noise ordinances after midnight so someone calls it in oh so you you don't have uniformed police officers in their patrol cars going up and down the cities listening with the windows down for loud house parties you don't oh okay so you wait for a call to come in right that's exactly what this ordinance is intending to do we're not looking to snoop on people's sidewalks but if you're a mother or a father with a stroller or you're a commuter on a bike and you're trying to get to work and chronically there's a parcel of
▶ 1:55:32 Michael P. Zwirko: property that isn't cleared you're going to call the police I mean the idea that this is going to be a drain on resources or a negative impact it's bewildering to me really I mean and you know we're bringing up the issue of the override and that's being used as a cudgel these days on everything I mean enough really I mean we're either going to do things as a city and we're going to operate or we're not maybe because if that's the case then why are we even having DPW clear the sidewalks to begin with because that would be a cost savings I'm sure if it's taking two to three hours for four sidewalk plows to clear you know various grids of the city why don't we just cut that service so really let's
▶ 1:56:12 Michael P. Zwirko: think about this right now as it stands if i don't want to shovel my sidewalk i don't have to that's it i don't have to i may have some legal liability if someone were to slip and fall but there's no punitive damages on my part and earlier we've already discussed what happened with recycling issues if someone was recycling incorrectly the dpw and through the recycling committee efforts and they would drop a leaflet in the recycling bins doing an audit we want to do this at this time before the snow actually hits so we can educate people on this and to the point of the corner lots like we can work through this this is stuff we can work through but at the end of the day sidewalks need to be cleared it's a public safety issue i mean when is this board
▶ 1:56:53 Michael P. Zwirko: ever backed down from protecting and supporting public safety this is a real issue here i mean i'm not you know we don't need to use this as a sledgehammer but i think we're vastly overstepping what we think that this enforcement provision is going to be so i i you know it's been stated earlier i'm a ex-officio member of this committee we do have some work to do i would look forward to further debate and discussion on this i would look forward to amendments of this i would look forward to people reaching out to not only their residents and constituents but also members that are before us this evening and talk about some of these things so we can work through it because you know again i don't want to enter another winter where we have a patchwork of
▶ 1:57:30 Robert A. Boisselle: sidewalks that aren't cleared and for the most part this isn't a problem but it's still it's still a problem in certain areas so uh with that um i yield the remainder of my time thank you mr chairman mr chairman at this time i would make a motion that we hold this matter in committee okay there's a motion is there a second second second there's a motion to keep this order in committee and hold it in committee all those in favor aye against it will stay in committee thank Thank you very much. Meeting is adjourned. Motion to adjourn.